California’s ties to Maranello go approach again. The Western state’s affect over the automotive fanatic, with its excellent local weather alongside its coast, huge top-speed-friendly deserts, and dense forests dissected by world-class winding roads, could be traced additional nonetheless. Within the Fifties, nonetheless, the craze for open-top sports activities vehicles within the Golden State prompted famed Ferrari importer and racer John von Neumann to make a request.
Von Neumann needed an open-top automotive for street and observe explicitly constructed to serve the American purchaser. Throughout the US in New York, Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti echoed this attraction, citing sturdy demand for the sort. Enzo Ferrari was initially hesitant to construct it, pointing to the existence of the 250 GT Cabriolet. Nevertheless, as cataloged in Dennis Adler’s “Ferrari 70 Years”, von Neumann and Chinetti replied that the Cabriolet wasn’t the automotive their consumers needed.
Their collective pull in Maranello was undeniably sturdy, because of steadily rising gross sales throughout the pond. As Adler tells it, this satisfied Ferrari to “ship Pininfarina again to the drafting board and his engineers to job on a revised chassis and suspension.” The outcome was the 250 GT Spyder
California, named after the house of its audience. Designed by Pininfarina and constructed by Sergio Scaglietti, it sits atop the GT Berlinetta chassis and stays one of the iconic and priceless Prancing Horses ever constructed.
Whereas the 365 California carried the identify properly into the Sixties, the Prancing Horse ultimately shelved it, reviving it in 2008 with the introduction of the Ferrari California 4 many years later. The moniker disappeared once more in 2017 because the mannequin that wore it exited manufacturing. The Portofino adopted shortly, its identify chosen to conjure pictures of the Italian Riviera. It launched vital structural and mechanical enhancements, ultimately doubling as the muse upon which Ferrari constructed the beautiful Roma Coupe.
It’s been almost 60 years since von Neumann and Chinetti made their preliminary request, but California’s affect in Maranello stays intact. I’m within the Ferrari Roma Spider, which, like its ancestors, stays front-engined and rear wheel drive. It’s an open-top sporty GT that successfully embodies the Californian spirit.
You’d be shocked at how little of an impact chopping the roof off a automotive can have on its character. Take an Aston Martin DB12 or a Porsche 911 Turbo S, morph them into Volante and Cabriolet type, and the use case stays the identical. Simply stash some sunscreen within the glove field, and also you’re good to go. This isn’t the case in terms of the Roma Spider. Its transition from onerous prime to convertible fully adjustments the way you drive it and, extra importantly, the place.
Take the Roma Coupe, marketed closely by Ferrari after the spirit of La Dolce Vita. Its low, sloping roofline and 60s-inspired curves conjure pictures of pulling as much as red-carpet premiers or extravagant events hidden deep throughout the metropolis. It captures the essence of the Bond impact that’s pushed AM gross sales for many years. By proudly owning one, you would possibly inherit a number of the traits of the brooding, mysterious character that might drive one on the large display screen.
In distinction, though equally positioned as La Nuova Dolce Vita, the Ferrari Roma Spider trades late-night escapades for sunny days on the West Coast. It’s mechanically an identical to the Coupe, drawing energy from the identical 612-horsepower 3.9-liter twin-turbocharged V8. Nonetheless, it encourages a much more relaxed angle behind the wheel. The place the Coupe is an athletic GT, encouraging you to bounce up a canyon street with simply manageably slides, the Spider desires you to take issues down a notch.
Its dry weight determine rises from 3,245 kilos for the Coupe to the three,430-lb Spider. An additional 185 lb shouldn’t be an inconsiderable sum, but it surely hardly issues on this automotive’s case. If efficiency is what you’re after, its 3.4-second dash to 62 mph ought to nonetheless be lots, as will its 199 mph prime pace. That is nonetheless a front-engine rear-drive Ferrari, and its dual-clutch computerized strikes via gears quickly. You possibly can even mild the rears if you would like.
As a substitute, you’ll need to put the highest down, have interaction the built-in computerized wind deflector, and revel in its snug magnetic trip suspension on a cruise up the coast. So far as grand touring goes, it has the Coupe beat by way of versatility.
Its roof stows in 13.5 seconds at as much as 37 mph, bringing you nearer to the word emanating from its quad exhaust ideas. Its inside is the very best of any present manufacturing Prancing Horse, sporting a separate central infotainment display screen that considerably will increase its usability. The cabin isolation is great regardless of, in my tester’s case, buying and selling its predecessor’s steel folding roof for a denim one.
Ferrari went to nice lengths to make sure that the rear headrests circulation seamlessly into the redesigned rear deck, and its consideration to element pays dividends. The Roma Spider is beautiful in its personal proper. Nevertheless, this tester’s Verde Masoni Opaco exterior, black wheels, and big fender shields lean extra into sporty territory than a sublime cruiser. Nonetheless, the Spider retains the identical sloping roofline that makes the Coupe a stunner.
This tester begins at $272,970 however, because of a hefty choices record, reaches an as-tested worth of $435,809.
The Ferrari Roma Spider’s persona breaks away from the Coupe in welcomed methods. It’s nonetheless a stunning two-seater that makes improbable V8 noises and is as fast as you’d need from a Prancing Horse. Whereas its weight features have an effect on its dealing with, it doesn’t cease it from being a wonderful grand tourer, the perfect automotive to benefit from the California sunshine. In any case, whereas the state’s affect over the Prancing Horse could date again to the 60s, the Roma Spider is proof that it endures at present.
